144s, I'm actually putting it back together!
 

I’ve known this car for a long time, far too long some would argue. It has known history, has never been in a serious accident and the structural bits are largely original. The story starts many years ago when the 144 and its driver had a difference of opinion one warm day. The Volvo threw a hissy fit and blew its rear main oil seal. The driver (not me), thoroughly fed up with it drove it across London with the oil light on. The engine wasn’t quite the same after that, although it never actually stopped running.

At that point it got an engine I’d rebuilt a little while previously. It has +40 pistons, D type cam, plateau honed block, lightened flywheel, balanced rods flywheel and crank and unleaded valve seats. At the same time I also took out the J type overdrive and swapped it for an upgraded D type.

I then took it for MOT and it passed with a few advisories. One of the advisories was the original pitted brake disks. Since we had no real use for the car and time wasn’t of the essence I thought they might as well be done.

I also decided that the car was starting to look a bit tatty so the front wings came off. I junked the non vented front panel and replaced it with a brand new slightly later one. At some point in its life a very slight car park nudge had been badly repaired and the corner of the front panel was rusty. I prefer the one with the vents on the valence, and I wanted this car capable of running hard, long and fast.

In that spirit I fitted an earlier inlet manifold, without secondary throttle flaps. A brand new 5 bladed plastic fan went on too. Flushed with success, Ho Hum, I shoved the car into the corner of the workshop and forgot all about it. It made a useful parts store though!

All sorts of interesting stuff came and went. PVs, 120s, 940 Turbos, Fiat Cinquecentos, Citroen 2CVs, Sprinter vans and the 144 seemed quite happy to just sit there, until one day I decided that something had to be done with it, I did briefly consider outing it as an abandoned project, but I don’t like defeatism and besides it is an exceptionally nice 144.

This then is what I found lurking in the corner.

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I’d tone some work to it already, but it had lurked in its corner for 6 years or so (probably longer but I don’t want to own up to that)

I’d already repaired one bonnet hinge mount, the other side is as new, and the fan plate for the rear shock mount

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Searching through the car produced a nice shiny set of new disks and pads, a Simons 2.5” exhaust and a set of Bilsteins and lowering springs. A bit of retail theraphy produced new callipers, brake hoses and a master cylinder.

As you can see the repairs were a little surface rusty, but there was nothing wrong with them a little dressing wouldn't sort out.

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The repairs are butt welded in, so it'll be nigh on invisible once it is finished. I'm not going to extremes though, this car will be neat and tidy, it will never sit stationary in a field at a car show.

I then decided I might as well sort out the rest of the slight issues. The wheel arches were both going on the seam from inner to outer arch. The inner arches were still perfect so it was pretty easy to get tem back to 100% solid. I also put in new spare wheel wells.

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Interesting read, nice to see another project in progress, keep us updated with lots of pics please.

Excellent.

It looks like a very good straight car. I look forward to more updates.

John

As you can see from the photo above of the rear arch I mark onto a fixed point of the remaining wing, a simple straight line with a distance. That way when you position the new arch you can double check that it is in the right place. Fortunately the shell really is very good. I could have got away with just putting some plop in the rear arches, but we decide they might as well be done right. Beyond that all it needed were some patches at the very back of the sills.

Fortunately the other bonnet hinge mount was as good as new. It is important the mounts are in good condition. If they're not the bonnet won't fold up properly if the car were to be involved in an accident.

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I then turned my attention to the outer panels. I altered the front panel so it would take the early style bumper mounts this car has. The alterations were lead loaded before being finished off with filler.

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Next in line were the new front wings. We decided to alter the front indicators, so the holes were welded up. These are actually late big indicator wings, but I used them as I happened to have a brand new pair looking for a purpose in life.

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As you can see I also pulled all the glass out of the car. As ever the carriers for the drop windows were rotten so I fitted new ones. I also robbed a 240 of its heated rear screen and searched out the new genuine Volvo front screen I'd tucked away for a rainy day many moons ago.

Fortunately when I pulled the glass out of the car all the window apertures were as good as the day the left the factory. The floors sills and outriggers are also absolutely perfect, and it was raher nice not to have to perform feats of upside down welding. Bits of welding spatter down your sleeves and in your ears should after all be treated as a special occasional treat, not an over indulgence.

The doors also were excellent, the filler you can see on the doors are minor parking dints, rather than rust. Especially the driver's door seems to have been opened frequently onto a low obstacle. The bonnet was also deemed fot for further service, but the bootlid was repaced with a perfect second hand lid. On the bonnet I took off the badge holes as it wouldn't be going back on.

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I also took off the remains of the door mirrors. I'm still unsure which mirrors it will use. The new "Volvo" ones don't seem to survive ther first rain shower which for the price they are is unacceptable. I'll have a search round the boxes of useful spares, but I know I don't have any stud fixed ones like the car used to wear. Unfortunately both are broken and only the bases remained.

So we’re actually making progress! Not only had we dug the 144 out of the corner, but we’d actually started some work on it! Mark, whose car it is and I started to figure out what we wanted to end up with. We share a workshop, together with a couple of other people and we have a healthy choice of parts accumulated over years.

The interior in the car isn't terrible, as they go, but the seats date from the era where Volvo seemingly started to make their "Vinyl" out of re-cycled vitamin C reinforced with banana skin fibres. Added to which the car had a horrid wooden dash kit fitted to it. Nasty, nasty, nasty!

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Some of the spec was determined by decisions made years earlier, we had the engine and gearbox, we had the exhaust, and we had the springs and shocks. We decided it wouldn't have standard wheels. Armin, a Volvo nut in Germany happened to come up with a set of 5,5J Kronprinz. And since I happened to be in Stockholm that seemed to me an ideal opportunity to nip off past Berlin on the way back to Calais :confused_smile: It's less than a 400 mile detour and the 940 likes a little run on an Autobahn!

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I took the bridge from Malmo to Copenhagen, and the followed the E20 across Denmark turning left to head towards Hamburg.

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I made Berlin in good time and here is the 940 sitting outside Armin’s place in the old East Berlin. You always know you’re in the East once you spot a Karl Marx Strasse or you get off the beaten track and the streets are still cobbled.

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Once back from Germany it was time to crack on with finding parts. The first decision was to fit a 164 interior. The one we found is less than perfect and will require some TLC, unless someone has some bits of perfect maroon interior kicking about? We’ll also make it some new maroon carpets, the ones it has are bright red and won’t look right.

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We also decided we’d change the instruments and the steering wheel.

Meanwhile the body progressed nicely, and was painted in its original grey. It was painted with all the glass out and the panels off. We drew the line though at pulling the engine and just painted the front of the engine compartment. We did paint the inside of the boot as well as the door shuts.

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The bonnet hinge repair came out nicely.

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The 940 was looking on in the background, it keeps grumbling it isn’t fair the 140 gets painted at less than 100K miles and that its bonnet needs doing after 220K hard miles; it isn’t wrong but I’m not listening!

I'm liking this car. The grey with the maroon leather should look great.

John

Excellent..
 

Great thread and an interesting read, keep up the good work and post lots of pictures..

Are you working to a deadline or just as and when??

Scott..

Thank you both. There isn't really a "deadline" other than that Mark and I want it out of the way so we can get on with other stuff. The basic problem with this car remains, it's really nice but we've never really found a use for it. And we've been looking for 20 odd years:-)

Mark's son has a 120 4 door we're also playing with. As soon as the 140 is done we'll get on with that and with the, whisper it not, 2CV van. The blog is catching up with the 140, it was painted a while ago, its progressing well.

The biggest job now is the interior, as soon as Rick, the friendly trim guy finishes the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost he's working on we'll twist his arm to make it some carpets.......